Secrets Within: Charlotte Douglas' Montana Secrets
by The One True Queen
Summary: 5 yrs ago, the U.S. Embassy in Tabari was bombed and two undercover agents, Lts. Ryan Christopher & Kena Claire, were presumed dead for their own protection. Righteous Sword, the dangerous terrorist group responsible for the Embassy Bombing, have been tying up loose ends for the five years. Now, they've pretty much taken every possible leak; Kena and Ryan are the only ones left...
1. Identity

_**Secrets Within**_

_**A Fan Fiction of Harlequin Intrigue #668 MONTANA SECRETS by Charlotte Douglas**_

Chapter One: Identity

She could not breathe. The acrid stench of smoke was searing her lungs.

Everything burned. Her skin, her head, her face and chest everything.

The darkness drowned her, and she tried to breathe but could not. The heat was overwhelming nothing like the ice-cold she expected.

But then again, she had never expected to die saving the lives of her best friend, Ryan Christopher, and Prince Asim Barakuh Ben Yaman.

The man she had fallen in love with.

Another bloodcurdling scream split the air as Asim charged into the room with Trace on his heels, both men wielding automatic handguns.

Trace slammed the light on and both men's eyes locked on the producer of the sound: Cassa.

Cassa lay in the queen-sized bed, trashing as she fought of an invisible attacker. The sheets lay tangled around her legs as her oversized T-shirt and long, dark hair practically choked her.

"Allah save me!" Asim heaved as he handed the gun to Trace and swept towards the bed.

"Cassa, wake up!" he urged as the woman's body began to convulse. Asim grunted as he trapped her wrists his hands, Cassa moaning in her sleep.

"B-bomb… in the Embassy!" she gasped, her breathing labored as the sweat rolled on her brow.

"What!" Trace gasped, looking up from untangling his friend's legs. He luckily missed a swipe from Cassa's foot.

"Sshh, _**Malaeka**_. There is bomb, but you have to wake up!"

Asim did not let Trace see the pinched expression etched into his face.

Cassa's memory was returning in her own Nightmares.

"She said 'bomb', Asim!" Trace stated, holding down the woman's legs (long ones, for someone petite) as she began to kick violently once more, narrowly missing his head.

_**This is the most intense one yet. The Colonel needs to be notified…**_

"Trace, call the Embassy. I n we need to talk to the Colonel."

Kena screamed as she and Ryan jumped Asim and the Ambassador of the U.S. from behind.

Just as the floor underneath them crumbled, the office doors at hers and Ryan's backs exploded, and the roof over their heads caved in on top of them.

Asim held her down as she let loose a back-arching scream. Tears had long since begun to stream down her cheeks, which were flushed crimson in the heat of the night.

"Cassa!"

By now, the room had been flooded with men in and out of uniformed, all bodyguards of the sovereign ruler of Tabari. Trace and others were on the phone to the Embassy and D.C., the rest assisting the Prince in any way they could to wake Cassa.

"Dammit, woman! Wake up!" Asim roared, his hand scoring the woman's cheek and snapping her head to the side.

The men in the room immediately ceased all action and silenced as Cassa's eyes snapped open to reveal a pair of tear-filled stormy greys.

Her chest heaved as she took a deep breathe, but choked and began to sob.

"Thank you, but I will take it from here. Everyone out except Trace." Asim grimaced and pulled Cassa's shaking body to his chest. Exchanging looks of worry and concern, the men slowly filed out until only the three were left.

"Sshh. You are all right, _**Malaeka**_. I am here," Asim murmured soothingly into her hair as she cried against his chest.

"You are all right, Cassandra."

He noticed her stiffen before she shoved roughly away from him. A second later and the sound of Cassa's hand colliding with Asim's cheek echoed into the air as the man was stunningly knock from the bed to the floor in an instant.

"Cassa!" Trace cried in confusion and moved to help Asim; but he raised a hand to stop him, sitting up on his own.

"You… you _**son of a b*tch**_!" she hissed and slumped to the floor herself, pain and hurt written in stone on her lovely face.

"That's not my name…" she sobbed, turning to bury her face into the comforter.

"Oh, god; that's not my name!"


	2. Pain

_**Secrets Within**_

_**A Fan Fiction of Harlequin Intrigue #668 MONTANA SECRETS by Charlotte Douglas**_

Chapter Two: Pain

What she wanted more than anything else in the world at that moment was to beat the _**shit**_ out of Asim.

How _**dare**_ he have the gall to lie to Kena and Ryan's faces?

"Damnit. Damn him." she could feel another headache coming on as Ryan stormed the commanding officer's desk.

"Why in the hell didn't you tell us?" he shouted. He had not sat down since they had gotten out of the limo and stalked through the Embassy's lobby doors. Moreover, she had refused to look at Asim- hell, acknowledge his presence in the world –since those two nights ago.

"Have a seat and calm down, Trace." The Colonel said calmly.

"My name's not Trace, and you damn well know it!"

"Stan down, soldier!" Barker snapped with authority. "You're way out of line."

"You can't give me orders! Our enlistment expired five years ago. I don't have to do a damn thing you say, but you had better start talking, or so help me, God…"

"Ry…" Kena groaned, rubbing her temples. Her headache went full-blown migraine in two seconds flat, and she suppressed a whimper.

"Look, _**Trace**_. You are making this harder than it has to be. Sit down before you give Cassa–" the Colonel was cut off yet again.

"Don't…" she whispered, looking around and frowning. None of the men's faces in the room was the one she recognized to be Marc Erickson's; her other best friend and soon-to-be Ryan's Brother-in-law. Her eyes widened then.

"Oh, god…"

"What?" Ryan was practically shaking with a fury that was only slightly deflated once he turned his pair of storming khaki-browns on her.

"Where…" Kena turned on eyes on the Colonel and asked, "Where is Marc Erickson?"

The sympathetic gleam in Colonel William G. Barker's dulling blue eyes gave him away before he even spoke.

"I'm sorry to inform you that Marc Erickson is dead."

Asim paced the lobby floor, back and forth, until the concierge asked him humbly to sit down; he had been brooding since Cassa and Trace had stepped into the elevator across the Lobby.

Cassa. His dear, sweet, Cassa.

"Dammit!" the Prince growled, running a hand roughly through the thick black waves of his hair as he sat down hard on the sofa.

His heart hurt. It hurt so bad, he wanted to cry. He would not let anyone see; Asim planned to shut himself in Spirit's stall when they got back to the palace.

The abrupt memory of the first time Cassa had ridden with him crossed his mind.

She had looked every bit the princess at his side, mounted upon Snow; the beautifully pure-white Arabian mare she loved so much. Next to him on his handsome, strikingly contrasting black Arabian stallion, Asher, she looked completely innocent of the world.

The way the sun shined in her eyes and kissed her golden-honey skin gave him a high like no other. The way the wind let her lovely dark hair fly and gave her cheeks the sweetest flush–

He opened his dark eyes to see Kena and Ryan standing over him. Ryan was obviously pissed all to hell, and Kena had painfully and obviously been crying; her cheeks and nose were red and her eyes were slightly puffy. She would be a pretty crier.

Asim opened his mouth to start with another apology, but Kena spoke before he could.

"I'm gonna go and get some water."

He stood and she moved off towards the dining room, but the way she ducked her head and pinched the bridge of her nose told him she had another migraine. It would have been cruel for him to even speak to her now.

"Asim." Ryan's harsh timbre made the Prince turn guiltily towards him.

"We want to go home," he said. "I need to hold my fiancée again, and Kena…"

"You can't, my friend. I am so sorry, but you can't; not unless…" he paused.

"Anything. _**Please**_." Ryan looked him straight in the eye.

"Can you remember anything worth mentioning? A name? A face? A voice, even? Anything at all?" Asim knew he looked plainly hopeful, as was his intention.

"No." Ryan said and after a few moments of thinking. Asim gave him a defeated sigh.

"You two will be flown to Washington. There, you will be debriefed on your tasks and–"

"The both of us are no longer apart of the U.S. Navy, Your Highness. We've taken permanent leave due to… you know."

"Yes, but now that your memories have returned–"

"Barely!"

"Let me finish, my friend. Now that your memories have somewhat returned to you, you have been given new status and will be given classified information. Your lives will not ever be the same again, my friend. This you can count on." Asim said cryptically.

Ryan looked at Asim helplessly, and the sovereign ruler of Tabari wrapped his arms around his best friend.

"I could not tell you, Ryan. Please believe me. If Righteous Sword knew that the two of you had survived the bombing five years ago…"

"They'd kill us both. Tie up all loose ends."


	3. Acceptance

_**Secrets Within**_

_**A Fan Fiction of Harlequin Intrigue #668 MONTANA SECRETS by Charlotte Douglas**_

_**Author's Note: Chapter 3 is exceptionally long; I hope the others are not this long, but long enough from now on. The LOTU will show up in just a bit, so hang tight if you can. Please and thank you. ^^**_

Chapter Three: Acceptance

Cassa leaned against the railing on the balcony outside her suite. She had only just come back from days of being in Washington and was tired; but she could not sleep. She had not been able to remember a damn thing in the past week since Asim had woken her from her nightmare.

She wanted to shoot herself in the foot for being so useless.

Kena and Ryan had reached the Pentagon just before one o'clock in the morning two nights ago. The pair had been immediately separated and had been subjected to three-hour interrogations that did shit for anyone's already stained stress-level. Afterwards, and they had been brought together again to be subjected to another meeting with a Colonel Wentworth, Director of the Pentagon's Homeland Security Division. They had been through enough in the past couple of days, and simply wanted some rest, but he was not done with them yet.

"You all can't go home as Kena and Ryan anymore."

Her blood had gone about as cold as humanly possible and Ryan growled from behind her, "Why the hell not?"

"The answer is simple, really, but you most certainly won't like it…." his lips pursed, and Kena moaned, unable to hear anymore. "Please, just…" She couldn't finish, and Wentworth gave her a regretful look as Ryan squeezed her shoulder.

"I apologize on behalf of the United States and everyone who's worked so hard in the past five years to catch Righteous Sword, but Lakena Katalina Claire and Ryan Jacob Christopher have been legally dead, killed in the United States Embassy Bombing five years ago."

Cassa slumped against the ornate railing, her head pounding once again. She was sick of these damn headaches.

The sound of a man clearing his throat behind her made her reach into the knife garter on her upper right thigh as she spun to face Prince Asim. He stood leaning nonchalantly against he doorframe, though he tensed as he saw the knife and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh. It's just you…" With visible relief and a blushed, Cassa watched him watch her with dark, hungry eyes a she slid the knife back into its garter.

"Just me, huh?" a gleam brightened his eyes, and she forced herself to look away.

Sighing, the Prince stepped outside onto the balcony.

"Don't, Asim." Cassa turned away from him to stare back out onto the desert sands.

"Cassa. Please, don't-"

"Don't what, Asim? Feel as thought the man I-" she stopped herself just in time, and shook her head.

Asim struggled not to wrap his arms around her then, praying what he thought she was about to say was what he thought it was.

"Mama? Buba?" the small, boyish voice made the pair frown in unison and turns towards the door to the suite.

Asim II, Asim and Fatima's oldest son, stood just inside Cassa's door.

"Asim, what in the world are you doing up this late?" Cassa reproached the Eight and a half year old before his father could say a word. She slid past the Prince to kneel before his son as he ran to Cassa and hugged her with all of his strength.

He rubbed his eyes sleepily and fought off a yawn as he began to speak, "Trace told me you were really sad when you guys came home earlier- he was, too -and that's why you didn't want to spend time with us. That you might go away, and -"

"No! Oh, Asim, no!" Cassa gasped, turning to stare helplessly at Asim over her shoulder as she made a mental note to punch Trace in his balls later. Asim and the seven other little ones had- for some reason no one could tell but simply accepted -been calling Cassa "Mama" since they could talk. This did not exactly bode well for her in Fatima's eyes.

He looked as though her were refraining from….something.

"I was sad, yes," she began, turning back to the precious little boy, "Very sad, but that didn't mean I didn't want to spend time with you and the others."

"Mama was going through some very stressing stuff for a while now, with Buba and Uncle Trace. But she'll be feeling better in no time, and-" Asim was cut off.

"And I'm not going anywhere any time soon. I'm staying right here, promise, Little Asim."

The boy smiled at his pet name and threw his arms around her again, kissing her cheek. "Yes! You're staying!"

Cassa and Asim laughed and stood, taking Little Asim with them. "Now you, my little Prince, need to get to bed," Cassa said firmly as she balanced the boy on her hip. She nuzzled his cheek and kissed it as she had when he was younger; he yawned, and Asim smiled fondly mussing his son's hair.

"Mama, sing to me?" Little Asim requested. His father looked in time to catch Cassa's blush before she started from the room and down the hallway.

"_**Lay down your sweet and weary head.**_

_** Night is falling; you have come to journey's end.**_"

Little Asim smiled sleepily, resting his head on Cassa's shoulder as she crooned.

"_**Sleep now, and dream of the ones who came before.**_

_** They are calling from across the distant shore.**_"

Asim stepped in front of Cassa and had taken her hand smoothly in the process, but stopped short.

Trace and another guard, Reilly, who were on duty to watch the kids tonight, were attempting to usher the other seven back into the suite and into bed. Asim could not help but chuckle; it looked like the kids had rallied together and were trying to bully Trace and Reilly into letting them wait for Little Asim to come back with their Mama and Buba. However, as soon as they had seen Asim and Cassa, they cheered in triumph.

"Mama, sing to us!"

"Buba, can you read to us?"

"Will you all just please go back to bed?"

"No!"

"I refuse!"

"I'm not tired, so take that and stick it up your shorts!"

"What! That's rude as he-"

"Reilly, quit cursing! They learned too many of those bad habits you've got as it is!"

"Damn straight! I taught my kids well!"

"Last time I checked, _**I**_ fathered them…"

"Ha!"

"Enough!" Cassa said, declaring silence in the hall. The kids stared up at her pleadingly.

"To bed. Now," she ordered, pointing inside the room. The kids groaned and cried out in protest.

"Ha! That is what you all get! Nobody listens to the bodyguards-"

"Reilly, shut up." Trace said.

"Please? We promise to go to bed right afterwards, honest!" they begged.

"Scout's Honor?" Six-year-old Salim said, tugged on Asim's pants-leg.

"You don't even know what a Scout is Salim. Now listen to your Mama; inside, all of you. Come on, let's go." he shook his head, taking his other son's hand and leading the small parade into the room.

Cassa, feeling herself relent as she put Little Asim to bed, sighed and went to sit in the rocking chair by the window seat that faced the door.

"Come on in, you two," she called to Trace and Reilly, who gladly stepped inside and closed the door as Salim climbed up and settled himself in her lap. She laughed as the other kids sat in front of her on the Persian rug while Asim took his perch at the window seat.

"Sing the pretty lullaby song, Mama," Salim requested, causing the other kids to take up the cry until Asim hushed them.

"Let Mama sing," he said, staring intently at Cassa, who blushed. Trace and Reilly knuckle-touched and turned towards the door.

"W-wait! Where are you two going?" Cassa cursed inwardly as her voice squeaked. Trace grinned and Reilly winked at her.

"I'm crazy tired from today, and Reilly agreed to take watch without me. Harry, who just woke up, is on his way; I'm heading upstairs to bed. Good night, you little Djinn. Your Highness, Cassa."

"Good night…" they replied as the kids went to hug the men good night.

When their friends left the room, Asim moved to stand at Cassa's right and rubbed the sensitive spot at the nape of her neck. Cassa relaxed, her body turning to putty as she closed her eyes and began to sing again.

"_**Hidden beneath the ground is the spring that feeds the creek.**_

_** Invisible as the wind that you feel upon you cheek.**_

_** And every breeze that whispers remind us constantly:**_

_** Sometimes what's real is something you can't see.**_"

She reached up and took Asim's hand in her own, which he brought to his lips and kissed softly.

The kids ooh-ed and ahh-ed and giggled while still looking adorably sleepy.

"_**Believe! -in all you can be-**_

_** A miracle starts whenever you dream.**_

_** Believe! And speak from your heart- you'll see:**_

_** Your heart will hold the key!**_"

Asim knelt at her side and Cassa leaned into his hand as he palmed her cheek, caressing her bottom lip with the callused pad of his thumb.

"Sing another one, Mama…" Salim yawned from where he snuggled into her lap and rested his head on her chest.

"Time for bed, little ones." Asim said huskily, taking Salim gently from Cassa and putting him to bed.

A chorus of small, feebly protesting groans ignited, and Cassa smiled before moving to put the other kids to bed,

"No, stay there," Asim rasped, and soon had everyone fast asleep under the covers. Cassa bit her lip in anticipation as he knelt in front of her, his expression serious.

"Cassa, I… You know how I feel… I know that you… damnit, why is this so hard?"

"Asim Barakuh Ben Yaman, you are Prince and sovereign ruler of Tabari. You are the most wonderful man I have ever met or will meet. You are strong and compassionate, but can be merciless and ruthless with the ever-changing direction of the flying sands. You are dark and handsome, with the temper of a lion. You are revered; cherished among your people-"

"Cassa…" Asim took her in his arms with a flourish and stood, striding to the window seat.

Moonlight shone into the room, giving Cassa's sweetly pale cinnamon skin a glow more beautiful than Asim had ever seen. _**She is a Princess in all but name…**_

"Asim, you are loved by a woman who would do anything and everything to keep you-"

"Though she happens to be my wife, she is in name only. And besides: she is _**not**_ the woman I have been in love with, Cassandra."

He cut her off before cupping her face, eyes wide, in his hands and snuffed out the gasp that rose from her throat with a passionate kiss.


End file.
